Fished El Salto, and if you don't think the guides & locals don't keep the 1-2lbers your wrong. They smack em on the head with beer bottles and makes tacos out of them.

Look back years ago with our dads, grand dads etc with pics of bass on stringers and fish frys. Then look at the giant bass they caught. I personally think catch and release has hurt along with the pressure that all lakes get. I think this is one of the reasons that Fork is not the same anymore.....

I promise you I'm doing my part.

Catch and release can't hurt anymore than eat them all big or small !!!

I don't think it's a simple as I catch a fish and put it back in the water and it lives vs. I put it in the cooler and eat it and it's dead.

There are lots of factors to consider when we compare it to our Dads and Grandads time when they ate everything. There are so many more fisherman today than there were then and all the tools we have at our disposal to find them. Most of those deep water fish went unmolested most of the season and were only available during the spring. Technology has changed the game in a major way.

I guarantee you some of the fish I release don't thrive going forward. Hook placement can have a factor on growth and health of a fish going forward. It's not just about being dead vs. being alive it's also peak growth vs. poor growth of the fish. Some of the fish I hook more than likely will die later, gills, tongues and heaven forbid the gut hook. They may swim away, but........ With more anglers than ever this has too be taken into account.

Add the tournament factor and delayed mortality especially during the summer and I think we kill far more fish than we realize. Just because fish swim away doesn't mean it lives and more importantly thrives as if it had not been caught and stressed in live wells and weigh ins. (I'm not saying this to be negative tournament, I fish them and love them) It's a variable that must be taken into account. Not to mention tournaments are more prevalent than ever.

I let the TPWD and the Biologists answer these questions as they understand all these variables much more than we do.

I think people are harvesting legal fish based on the anecdotal evidence I observe. For instance, go to a 14" minimum lake and notice the percentage of fish you catch that are 16" long or above. Now go to an 18" minimum lake like Gilmer or Welsh and pay attention to the same thing. I can catch 16-17 inch fish all day long on those lakes but legal fish over 18" are hard to come by. Why is that?

I think it can only be because quite a few people are taking keeper size fish home to eat, whether "keeper" means 14" and above or 18" and above.